by Liz Fielding
* * *
Chloe stirred as the train stopped, looked up and, realising where she was, pushed through the crush to get off. There were messages on her phone from Augustin, who owned the bistro where she worked in the evening, pleading with her to come in as soon as she could.
Her head was pounding and all she wanted to do was go home, curl up in bed and pull the covers over her head but Augustin had been good to her and she couldn’t let him down. Besides, there was no time to think when she was serving; force of habit kept a smile on her face and just now she needed anything that would keep her from thinking about all she’d lost.
James. Their baby...
Seeing him brought back all that pain and for a moment she was so overwhelmed by grief that she clung to the stair rail while people pushed by.
Someone stopped to ask if she needed help, but she shook her head, forced her legs to move.
Back on the pavement, out of the shelter of the Metro, she was caught by a fit of shivering. Shock as much as the cold stinging her eyes that were wet with rare tears. She blinked them away as she reached the bistro, grateful for the warmth and the relieved welcome of Augustin who, rushed off his feet, didn’t care that she was late, only that she had arrived.
She swallowed a couple of painkillers for her head, dealt with hair that had come loose in her haste and realised that she’d lost the silver pin that kept it in place. The silver pin that James had bought her for her seventeenth birthday.
That was the moment that she gave into the tears, sinking onto the floor as they ran, unchecked, down her face.
‘Chloe? Are you okay?’ There was a tap on the door and when she didn’t answer, Augustin opened it. ‘Chérie...what is it?’
She scrambled to her feet, dashing away the tears. ‘Nothing. I’m upset because I lost something precious. Stupid. I’ll be right there...’
He looked doubtful.
‘Really. Just give me a minute.’
He nodded and a couple of minutes later she was in her apron, apologising as she took orders from impatient diners. This was what she did now. What she was.
The money wasn’t great, but she worked hard for the tips, saving every cent, hoping one day to create a future for herself. A life where no one could dictate what she did, what she thought, who she loved.
But she was on edge; every time the door opened behind her she twitched, half expecting to hear a familiar voice.
‘Mademoiselle...?’
Recalled to attention by a diner, she forced a smile. ‘Poulet fermier,’ she said, repeating the last item, just to prove that she had been listening, took the rest of the order and then went to the bar to collect their drinks.
‘Are you okay, Chloe?’ the barman asked as he removed the cap from a bottle of beer.
‘It’s been a long day.’ She stretched her aching neck. ‘We’re short-staffed at the hotel. It’s not just here that I’m doing the work of two.’
But not tomorrow. Tomorrow was Sunday and the bistro was closed. And as for the hotel...
She didn’t know how long James would be staying, but he would be waiting for her and she wasn’t going anywhere near it until she was sure that he’d checked out.
* * *
Jay gave up on sleep long before it was light, but there was already a text from Louis confirming that he would take the job and, in view of the urgency, would be leaving for London that morning.
He responded with pleasure and not a little relief and, despite the early hour, called Hugo to give him the good news.
‘Thanks, Jay. That’s a big item crossed off the list. Are you catching the early Eurostar?’
He should get back to London, but his own sous chef was more than capable of holding the fort and he couldn’t leave until he’d found Chloe, talked to her.
‘There are a few things I need to do here,’ he said, ‘but tell Louis to call my office if he needs help in recruiting staff. We have a waiting list of really good people I’d give a job to in a heartbeat if I had an opening.’
There was a moment of silence while Hugo digested that, but all he said was, ‘Thanks. I’ll see you when you get back.’
He wasn’t leaving the room until he’d seen Chloe so, after a quick shower, he ordered croissants and coffee from room service. It was still early, but he hung a ‘make up my room’ sign on the door, took his laptop to the desk, out of sight of the door, and settled down to wait.
It was late afternoon before there was a tap on the door, a call of, ‘Housekeeping.’ It wasn’t Chloe. Not exactly a surprise.
He’d hoped she might, once she’d thought about it, decide to face him, but if that was the case, she wouldn’t have come here. She would have called him through the hotel switchboard and arranged to meet somewhere neutral.
She hadn’t done that, and someone else was working her floor, so she had to be avoiding him.
The housekeeper seemed surprised to see him there, but with a wave of his hand he indicated that she should carry on, waiting until she was pulling back the bed before, very casually, asking, ‘Where’s Chloe today?’
‘Chloe?’ Her expression was blank.
‘The English girl who was working this floor yesterday. She was at school with my sister,’ he said, which was perfectly true.
‘Oh?’ Her cautious response suggested doubt, but he pressed on, as if he hadn’t noticed.
‘Is it her day off?’
She shrugged. ‘No. She called in sick today. Everyone has the flu.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. I hoped to catch her before I leave.’ The girl stopped fussing with the pillow and waited. He noted the name on her staff badge and said, ‘I’m in Paris recruiting staff for my family hotel in London, Julianne. After I saw Chloe, I texted my sister—’ which was also true ‘—and she wants to offer her a job.’ Not true, but he didn’t have time to mess around with complicated explanations. ‘I don’t suppose you have her telephone number? Or, better still, her address?’ She was unlikely to answer a call from a number she didn’t know. ‘If she’s sick, Sally would want me to make sure she’s okay.’
‘They’ll have it in the office,’ Julianne pointed out.
He pulled a face. ‘A bit awkward asking them for it. Under the circumstances.’
Another shrug, but this time there was only one meaning. A fifty-euro note found its way into her hand and a minute later he had what he wanted.
Aware that he had run the risk of exposure, he shouldered the backpack that contained his laptop and change of clothes, asked the receptionist to call him a taxi to take him to the Gare du Nord, and checked out.
At the railway station he bought flowers and took the Metro to the outskirts of Paris. It was getting dark by the time he reached the shabby cobbled street where Chloe lived. Her apartment was at the top of the house and, heart sinking, he climbed five flights of cold, cheerless stairs with damp running down walls that looked as if they hadn’t seen a lick of paint in half a century.
There was no response to his knock, but a chink of light showed under a large gap at the bottom of the door.
‘Chloe!’ he called, knocking again.
Nothing.
Angry now, he raised his voice. ‘Come on, Chloe. I’m not leaving, so you might as well let me in.’
CHAPTER THREE
CHLOE LEANED AGAINST the door, fighting the desperate urge to open it. To see James one more time.
She had done everything to try and shut down her brain but, ever since she’d seen him reflected in that window, her memory had been running a loop of the time they had been together, replaying every moment she had spent with him.
She had come close to calling the hotel to speak to him more than half a dozen times, telling herself that it had been cowardly to run, that he would have questions.
Or maybe not.
James had been shocke
d to see her but, unlike her, he’d achieved what he’d talked about, dreamed about. He had an exciting and successful career. She doubted that he had more than a fleeting memory of a youthful infatuation and, as she’d watched his rise, she’d told herself that she was content. That she wanted him to be fulfilled, happy.
Seeing him so unexpectedly had shattered that image of selflessness. She was furious with him for being the guest in a luxury hotel, while she was the one making his bed.
Alone in her miserable one-room apartment, she wanted to lash out, scream at him, tell him what she’d suffered, but with him standing on the other side of the door all she could think about was that spring and summer when, for the briefest moment, she had been happy.
‘Please, Chloe...’ This time he was begging and, unable to help herself, she turned the key and opened the door.
James straightened as if he had been leaning against it until he heard the key turn. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes as if, like her, a sleepless night had been spent remembering...
For a moment they just stood in silence, looking at each other. Then he reached out, grazed her cheek with his cold fingers and, without thinking, she leaned into his hand like a kitten seeking comfort.
He drew her close, so that her head was against his chest, against his beating heart, and her arms, with nothing else to do, encircled a chest broader than she remembered.
He took a step forward, taking her with him as he kicked the door shut. The flowers he’d been holding hit the floor, a bag slipped from his shoulder and they were in each other’s arms without a word being spoken, clinging to one another as if they would never let go.
After for ever, he leaned back, cradling her face between his hands as he looked at her. As she looked at him.
He brushed a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb, kissed away another, then she was tasting the salt as his lips found hers.
It had been a long time since she’d been kissed, felt desired, beautiful. She’d dreamed of this moment, imagined how it would be when the lost years fell away and she’d be that girl on the cusp of her seventeenth birthday, melting in the arms of a boy who made her feel like a princess.
This was nothing like that fantasy.
They had spent nearly a year getting to know one another in the most intimate of ways. James knew all the sweet spots, and she groaned with pleasure as he deepened the kiss, her limbs liquefying as cold fingers stroked the back of her neck, slid beneath her sweater to cup her breast, teasing her already rigid nipple with the tip of his thumb.
There was nothing but hot, desperate need as he stoked the heat and she was with him every step of the way as, shedding clothes with every step, he backed her across the room until she was pinned against the wall. Abandoning her lips, he took her breast, the nipple now achingly hard against her bra, into his mouth.
She cried out as he sucked hard, a shout of triumph that could have been heard over the bells of Notre Dame, urging him on as his hand breached leggings, underwear, to seek out the hot silky ache between her legs.
Desperate, weak with longing, she dug her fingers into his shoulders as he raised his head and looked straight into her eyes as he stroked her to a peak of pleasure. Watched as she fell apart beneath his touch until, at the perfect moment, he drove his fingers deep inside her to deliver a shattering release.
Still shaking with the aftershock, she grabbed handfuls of his tee shirt and pulled it over his head. She wanted to touch him, taste him, feel his skin next to hers. Give him what he’d just given her and more.
She pressed her lips, her tongue, against his chest, tasting him, her hands busy with button and zip as she backed him towards the bed and he tumbled across it.
What followed was raw, brutally intense, utterly consuming and afterwards Chloe lay with her heart pounding, her breasts crushed against a rock-hard chest that was hairier than she remembered, their legs entangled in the intimate confines of her narrow bed, as she came down from the high of a tumultuous climax.
Only one word had been spoken since James had walked through the door. ‘Wait...’ as he had grabbed his trousers from her hands. Protecting her. Protecting them both.
A hard lesson learned.
Now the only sound was of them catching their breath as they looked at each other with the dazed expression of two people who’d just had the sky fall in on them. As the reality of what had just happened began to dawn on them.
On her.
She had just had rip-your-clothes-off sex with a man she hadn’t seen for ten years. She didn’t do that. Ever...
Well, not since the time when, despite all the plans they had made, she had, deep down, known that their future would never happen and, in a moment of desperation, despair, had thrown herself at him.
As a teenager it had been stupid. And they had both paid a price for that.
As an adult that total loss of control was embarrassment on the Richter scale even with the protection.
What had she been thinking?
She looked across the broad chest, to the stubble of beard that was new. The easy answer was that she hadn’t been thinking, but that would be wrong. She’d been thinking and thinking and remembering for the best part of twenty-four hours.
Thinking about every moment, every touch, her body vibrating from thoughts that refused to be shut out. The sight of him had lit the blue touchpaper and, when she’d touched him, it had gone off like New Year’s Eve.
At least it was the same man—the only man.
She could console herself with the fact that it was about him rather than simple lust. But what did you say after ten years?
James turned his head and said, ‘Hello.’
That was it. It was that simple?
Not simple.
She had to force her response through a throat constricted by a mangle of emotions. Not the embarrassment, the awkwardness, but joy, wonder, to know everything she had clung to was real, true; that her passion for James was as intense, immediate, overwhelming as it had been when she was seventeen.
‘Hello.’ The word was barely audible, but James smiled and shifted his arm so that he could put it around her shoulders, pull her closer and for a moment she could close her eyes and imagine that she was a teenager again and in love.
Then, James said, ‘We’re going to need a bigger bed.’
In spite of the emotional turmoil whirling around her head, she let out a shout of laughter.
He’d said the exact same words one evening when they were supposed to be revising for a biology exam and had opted for the practical.
‘You remembered,’ he said, grinning.
‘How could I forget? Jaws was your favourite movie and when I didn’t get the reference, you insisted I watch it with you. It scared me so much I...’ She stopped as she remembered exactly what she’d done to make him turn off the movie. ‘So, what’s your favourite film now you’re a famous chef with a Michelin star?’ she asked, before he could go there.
‘It will always be Jaws...’ He raised a hand to briefly cradle her cheek. ‘Are you hungry?’
She had been starving it seemed, but not for food. The mention of it, however, brought her crashing back to reality and she yelped as she caught sight of the clock.
‘I’m going to be late for work!’ she said, wriggling free of his legs, his arms as she tumbled out of bed.
‘Work?’
He sat up, combing his fingers through hair she had so thoroughly tousled. She dragged her eyes away, opened drawers looking for clean underwear but the bed squeaked as he stood up. The room was small; all it took was a step and she could feel the heat of his body at her back.
‘I thought you called in sick today.’
‘No...’ She turned to face him. ‘I said it was a family emergency, but I work evenings as a waitress at a bistro.’
James look
ed around, taking in the tiny studio apartment. The kitchen scarcely more than a cupboard. The place in the corner where the rain had come through the roof and the wallpaper she’d put up to make it feel more like home was stained and peeling away.
‘It takes two jobs to live like this?’
‘Three. I do some cleaning work when I can get it. Paris is expensive and I won’t be paid for the day I missed at the hotel.’
‘They can’t do that,’ he protested.
‘It’s agency work. They can do whatever they like.’
‘I’ll cover it...’ The words died in his mouth as he realised how that must sound. ‘We have to talk, Chloe.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’ She needed to take a shower but, as she turned away, church bells began to ring. ‘Oh... It’s Sunday...’
‘All day.’
‘I...’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.’
‘I think we both know the answer to that,’ he said. ‘Loud enough for the neighbours to hear.’
Blushing furiously, she ducked around him and shut herself in the shower. The pressure was abysmal and the water lukewarm or she’d have stayed under it until he gave up and left.
Fat chance of that. He wasn’t going anywhere until he had answers to all the questions that must have been burning a hole in his brain for years.
She was going to have to talk to him and the sooner it was done, the sooner she could get back to reality.
When she emerged, still a bit damp around the edges, but dressed, the kettle was on and James was fastening the buttons on his shirt. One was hanging on a thread. As he attempted to fasten it, it came away in his hand and he looked at it for a moment, and they were both remembering the moment when she’d tugged at it in the frantic race to get out of their clothes.
‘Give it to me,’ she said. ‘I’ll sew it back on for you.’ Because if he didn’t stop looking at her like that there was only one hunger that would be satisfied. If they were going to talk, they needed to get out of this room. ‘And in answer to your question, yes, I’m hungry.’